Dem Lt Governor Mandela Barnes leads absolute piece of shit Republican Senator Ron Johnson 51 to 44 percent in a new Marquette University Law School survey. It’s an improvement for Barnes over the 46% to 44% lead Marquette found in June, and importantly puts him over 50% in cutting Johnson off from a third term of telling people mouthwash cures COVID and other nonsense.

Republican Wyoming voters on Tuesday handed the GOP Secretary of State nomination – and the office itself effectively starting next year – to Chuck Gray, a hardcore 2020 election conspiracy freak who believes Trump actually won reelection and would never certify a Democrat winning in the state and so on and so forth. So a MAGA election denier really is on the ballot and will win, just like the mainstream media warned you they would. Except of course this is Wyoming and this asshole will, never ever have to refuse to certify a Democrat winning a statewide race.

Like we’ve said before, the threat of rogue Republican governors secretaries of state refusing to certify the Electoral College vote in 2024 is probably overrated, but not completely out of the question in the swing states. Wisconsin and Nevada would probably be the biggest concerns given the tight gov and Senate races in both. Arizona may have the two loudest MAGA assholes on the ballot – Gov candidate Kari Lake and Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, but poll after poll puts statewide Dems ahead of Republicans there. Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania is another vocal democracy hater, but he’s down 14 points against AG Josh Shapiro in a recent poll.

“A Missouri man was indicted yesterday for allegedly leaving a voicemail containing a threat on the personal cell phone of an election official in the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Maricopa County, Arizona. Walter Lee Hoornstra, 50, of Tecumseh, is charged with one count of communicating an interstate threat and one count of making a threatening telephone call.”

“According to the indictment, on or about May 19, 2021, Hoornstra allegedly left the following voicemail message on the personal cell phone of the election official: ‘So I see you’re for fair and competent elections, that’s what it says here on your homepage for your recorder position you’re trying to fly here. But you call things unhinged and insane lies when there’s a forensic audit going on. You need to check yourself. You need to do your [expletive] job right because other people from other states are watching your ass. You [expletive] renege on this deal or give them any more troubles, your ass will never make it to your next little board meeting.’ If convicted, Hoornstra faces up to five years in prison for making a threatening interstate communication and up to two years in prison for making a threatening telephone call,” says a Justice Department press release.

Andrew Warren, the twice-elected state attorney of Hillsborough County, Florida who was suspended by Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has challenged DeSantis’s disciplinary action, saying DeSantis overstepped his authority according to Florida’s constitution, CNN reports.

After Florida enacted draconian laws punishing women who seek abortions, doctors who perform abortions, and people who teach that LGBTQ people exist, Warren said he would not prosecute people who fell on the wrong side of Republicans’ fascistic dictates.

“The Florida Constitution sets very limited parameters under which a governor can suspend an elected official and what’s happening here is, he’s trying to overturn a free and fair election, Warren said in an interview on CNN Wednesday. “He’s trying to throw out the votes of hundreds of thousands of Floridians. And he’s trying to substitute his judgment for that of the voters who elected me.”

Latvia born businessman and Putin critic Dan Rapoport was found dead in Washington, DC this week of “an apparent suicide” in a story that is not just sketchy in its details but in the availability of said details. The Independent’s article cites a Russian state media “gossip columnist”, not any DC media, as saying Rapoport’s remains were found in a park and that his wife denies it was a suicide.

The Independent is a British paper but covers quite a lot of American subjects and has at least one reporter based in DC, maybe even a whole bureau, so this is some weird shit. The detail about him selling the home in the Kalorama neighborhood is in the headline but not the body of the article. Another outlet, Fox3Now.com has more coverage but appears completely fake, like someone slapped together a site to make it look like they’re a local Fox affiliate.

Probably a safe bet that the guy is actually dead. That we can’t get a straight story about it to source from is almost as disconcerting as the fact that Putin’s goons got to someone here in the United States, in our capital, and that he obviously had some sort of connections to the DC elite.

Spotted hanging out with the locals at a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast in New Hampshire on Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence told NBC Noose reporter Peter Nicholas he’s open to sticking his neck out and testifying to the January 6th Select Committee should they want to rope him in. “If there was an invitation to participate, I would consider it,” said Pence.

Alcoholic shitbrain Rudy Giuliani arrived at the Fulton County courthouse in Atlanta on Wednesday morning to testify to the special grand jury investigating the failed Trump coup to overturn the 2020 election in the state, NPR Georgia politics guy Steve Fowler reports.

It’s not especially likely Rudy will say much of anything given his delayed testimony comes just two days after he was informed by the district attorney’s office he’s officially a target of the criminal investigation and faces prosecution for his involvement in the fake elector scam.

Democrat Mary Peltola leads batshit idiot Sarah Palin and Republican nerd Nick Begich III in the early tallies of ranked-choice voting in the special election for Alaska’s at-large House seat as of Wednesday morning local time, the Anchorage Daily News reports. Whether this means Peltola actually ends up winning, we have no idea, but that she apparently has the most first-place votes in the field so far is not a bad sign when Sarah Palin was supposed to kick ass.

When Donald Trump tweeted the above photo showing a damaged Iranian missile launch site after an August 30, 2019 intelligence briefing, he caught the intelligence community off-guard because the photo was highly classified at the time due to the counterintelligence that could be gleaned from it, NBC News reports.

While critics debated if Trump disclosed Top Secret information to our adversaries by putting the image on social media, Trump supporters cried a familiar refrain:  he’s president and he can declassify anything he wants.  Now NBC News confirmed that the photo was secret, and Trump didn’t think twice about putting it on social media. 

A report by a Presidential Emergency Board tasked with finding a compromise solution to the stalemate in contract negotiations between major rail freight carriers and the 115,000-member labor union recommended pay increases and back-payments for workers, Reuters reports.

The two sides now have 30 days to review the 119-page report.  If both sides agree to the terms, the contract negotiations move closer to closing because the major issues are worked out.  If one side objects, Congress can intervene in the negotiations, which is something neither side typically wants, but may be necessary to prevent a work stoppage or lock-out, which would exacerbate existing supply chain problems.

The report recommends issuing retroactive raises for 2020 of 3.0% and 3.5% for 2021, plus annual raises of 4% to 7% through 2024.  They also propose granting an additional paid holiday every year, as well as reinstituting $1,000 annual bonuses paid back to 2020 and through 2024.

Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman has seen enough:  Liz Cheney will be defeated in the Wyoming Republican primary for the state’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives by Trump-endorsed Harriett Hageman, the chairman of the state’s GOP.

After the right-wing echo chamber amplified a series of lies about treatments for transgender children, Boston Children’s Hospital warned employees to guard their personal safety after receiving a growing number of threats against the hospital and its workers, NBC News reports.

The threats escalated after BCH was targeted by groups of conservatives on social media, like the LibsofTikTok Twitter account, where significant amounts of false information is spread.  In this case, the Twitter account, run by Brooklyn real estate agent Chaya Reichik, propagated a false claim that BCH performed hysterectomies on children under the age of 17 if they say they’re transgender; BCH does not perform any such surgery on a minor for that reason.

“In response to commentary last week critical of our Gender Multispecialty Service (GeMS) Program, Boston Children’s Hospital has been the target of a large volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff.   We are deeply concerned by these attacks on our clinicians and staff fueled by misinformation and a lack of understanding and respect for our transgender community,” BCH said in an emailed statement, adding, “Boston Children’s is proud to be home to the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States.”

With his “Elite Strike Force” of lawyers who were representing him in scores of election lawsuits in 2020–only one of 60 they could claim as any type of victory–are either suspended from practicing law, appearing on Newsmax, or defending themselves from billion-dollar lawsuits, Donald Trump is having problems finding lawyers willing to represent him in upcoming national security cases, the Washington Post reports.

Trump had relied on a variety of wannabe mob-style lawyers, like Michael Cohen, to represent him in his legal affairs, but potential charges relating to his mishandling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago hourly motel and supper club require different, more competent representation.

Unfortunately, his reputation of not listening to his lawyers, not paying his lawyers, and undermining defense strategy by bloviating in interviews is coming back to haunt Trump, putting off the high-caliber lawyers that someone of a former president’s stature would typically attract.  But Trump is no typical former president, and his lack of stature demonstrates that.

Saying that the negotiated punishment was too weak, a federal judge rejected a plea deal reached with a Maryland couple accused of stealing classified documents detailing US submarine data and attempting to sell them to a foreign government, the Washington Post reports.

Jonathan Toebbe, 43, a civilian engineer for the Navy, and his 46-year-old wife, Diana, had struck a deal with federal prosecutors for Jonathan to serve 12½ to 17½ years in prison while Diana would serve just three.

U.S. District Judge Gina M. Groh of the Northern District of West Virginia, however threw out the plea agreements because she felt the sentences were too lenient based on the seriousness of the offense.  The Toebbes then withdrew their earlier entered guilty pleas.

Apparently hell bent on banning books written by Jews, the Keller Independent School District in Texas went ahead and removed the Diary of Anne Frank, and the Holy Bible from classrooms and libraries at schools in the district – among 39 others for various potential thoughtcrimes, the Texas Tribune reports. It’s not clear how exactly the Bible ended up on the ban list.

Jenna Ellis, the protege to disgraced former New York City mayor and suspended lawyer Rudy Giuliani in his quest to uncover nonexistent conspiracies to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has been ordered to appear before a Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s scheme to submit a slate of fake electors to the National Archives and Congress, CNN reports.

Self-dubbed “America’s Lawyer” on her Twitter page, Ellis took her case to a Colorado court for some reason, which is an odd move given that the grand jury in question is empaneled in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump associates are being investigated for trying to pressure the Georgia Secretary of State to flip votes to aid Trump and declare him the winner of the state’s electors.

Ellis wrote a memo sent to Trump attorney Jay Sekulow outlining a scheme to undermine the integrity of various states’ slates of electors certified for the Electoral College by having Vice President Mike Pence claim the slates from states like Arizona and Georgia weren’t legitimate and that the Republican state legislatures should submit new slates.  Sekulow dismissed the theory that Pence could individually dismiss certified state electors. 

Apologies for the poor quality of this rip. It’s unclear why this jackass Mark Lombardo didn’t upload an original to his YouTube channel, as five of his other campaign ads are available there.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation have opened a criminal probe into the theft of election system data in rural Coffee County in January 2021 by MAGA activists under the command of loathsome conspiracy freak Sidney “Kraken” Powell, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The January 7th, 2021 breach, first reported in May 2022, is just one of dozens of documented incidents since the 2020 election in which Trump fanatics have tampered with tabulation equipment, election servers, voter check-in computers and ballot memory cards – and MAGA cultist local officials just let them take whatever they wanted. News of the investigation comes just a day after a court filing exposed a trove of communications between the Kraken squad and a software firm hired to examine the data and code extracted in the Coffee County heist.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that transgender people have the right to seek accommodation and protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, providing another layer of assistance to those dealing with gender dysphoria, Law.com reports.

In a majority opinion, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Clinton appointee, wrote, “Given Congress’ express instruction that courts construe the [Americans with Disabilities Act] in favor of maximum protection for those with disabilities, we could not adopt an unnecessarily restrictive reading of the ADA.”

Motz wrote that ignoring the medical needs of people with gender dysphoria, the medical condition impacting transgender people, would require the court to “rewrite the statute in two impermissible ways: by penciling a new condition into the list of exclusions, and by erasing Congress’ command to construe the ADA as broadly as the text permits. … We cannot add to the ADA’s list of exclusions when Congress has not chosen to do so itself.”

A 76 year old Idaho man is ok after stopping to use a public park restroom on his way home from a Mormon singles event on Saturday only to be locked inside by a careless city employee who didn’t check if anyone was in there first, trapping the man within for 36 hours, KTVB reports.

Graydon Jensen was discovered by another Declo, Idaho city parks employee at around 7:30 Monday morning when the restroom was reopened. Jensen’s stepbrother Leslie Warwood told KTVB it seems like the Latter Day Saints singles circuit player is okay in spite of the ordeal. “He has a much better disposition this morning than I would have if it would have been me. I was furious when I found out what had occurred. It could have ended horrifically,” said Warwood.